This is in response to my earlier post: https://thewomenofletters.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=785&action=edit

In no way do I want to diminish the importance of Critical Race Theory, as I have often taught various aspects of it in my classrooms and with internationals. My point, however, was that it needs to be age-and population-specific, rather than a blanket, one-size-fits-all paradigm. My position is based on having come of age during political correctness in academia, and in seeing how it ended up being unconstructive and alienating rather than inclusive and constructive and fostering dialogue. All too often, I have found that well-meaning liberals have tried to foster social change in a way that seems to disregard the complexity of positions as well as the people that the paradigm is trying to serve. Also, I believe that knee-jerk reactions and cancel culture are not constructive.

I am appalled by people who deny the importance of racism, structural racism, discrimination, and the ugly parts of our history. A schoolteacher friend in the South told me of how many people are angry at students being taught CRT, people who still can’t accept that the “War of Northern Aggression” did not end well for the South. This is not to say there isn’t anti-CRT sentiment in the North or other parts of the country; in these places, there is often denial that a problem still exists, or that because people are individually nice that discrimination is done with, and all historical wounds healed. These are all serious, necessary, issues, and I hope they will be taught carefully and complexly in our schools and in academia.